Thank you for this! I've listened to the broadcasts on WQXR-FM. Mr. Dubal emerged there as an insightful host after over 20 years as (at first) the program director, then the music director (3 years later).

WQXR-FM was a commercial station owned and run always by The New York TImes. It began on AM and continued there until a longstanding pop and big band music station named WNEW-AM was closed: QXR's manager opted to recreate that station on the AM outlet with many, many real talents.

NCN had good ownerships for years -- even the very corporate GAF. When it was bought by a typically heinous broadcast corporation it was simply doomed. Along the brief way to that finish the station was undone.

QXR still lives. The Times sold the station's broacast channel to one that broadcast Spanish pop. The city's public radios station, WNYC, found a way to move it farther down the dial and make it listener supported. WNYC with that ended its own classical and opera programming... which makes this version of WQXR the sole classical radio station (yes, in a world of internet streaming and -- what do they call it? Oh, yes -- downloading) in our city.

Here is a good, warm, honest history of WNCN. It's a different world, yes... but with an inner life you truly recognize.

http://www.wncn.org/

Thanks. It's very interesting for me.